TouchDesigner Meetup: Extensions & Callbacks
Hey, I just met you, callback later.
Tuesday, August 5th (9am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm UK / 6pm CET)
Wieland Hilker (PlusPlusOne) for Monomango and SUNST
Our bi-monthly TouchDesigner meetup returns Tuesday, August 5th, with a fantastic lineup comprising three world-class practitioners. This event covers the vital topic of Extensions & Callback, and whether you are familiar with Extensions & Callbacks or not, it will clarify these concepts and provide demonstrations of best practice. TouchDesigner meetups are a friendly affair, so you're also welcome to stick around afterwards to hang out, check out other people's projects, and even give a little showcase or plug to your own.
As ever, TouchDesigner Meetups are created in collaboration with Derivative, creators of TouchDesigner. Meetups are curated by Berlin artist and educator Bileam Tschepe, an inspiring creator of audio-reactive, interactive and organic digital artworks, and installations.
Don't forget, TouchDesigner is free for non-commercial use, so grab your copy now.
Presentation #1: Validation: It's Not Just Me
Image by Noah Norman
Presentation Overview
Stop hoping and get serious: using Pydantic in TouchDesigner for validation, DTO, serialization, type hinting, settings management, etc etc.
- What you may be doing today: untyped dicts + unvalidated external data causing subtle bugs and runtime crashes
- Pydantic's core gain: models = schema + parser + serializer
- Plus! typed DTOs as safe hand-offs between TD operators
- Guardrailing external data (OSC/MQTT/REST) before it hits your network
- One-liner JSON / JSON-Schema for presets, docs, and web endpoints
- Config & preset setups BaseSettings
- Performance stuff & foot-guns
- Extras: custom validators, rich extra types, IDE completions
Presentation #2: Hey, I just met you, callback later.
PlusPlusOne in collaboration with Dan Molnar: a real-time playback system for immersive cinema experiences / Image by Hope Alkazar
Understanding callbacks in TouchDesigner, and how rolling your own can greatly improve your workflows.
Wieland Hilker will take you on a journey from CallbackDATs via ExecuteDAT to a self-built CallbackManager.
He will show an EventSystem that contains clear examples.
Presentation #3: Callbacks, Extensions, and other Python patterns in TouchDesigner
Image by Ivan DelSol
An introduction to TouchDesigner's advanced Python systems, what they're good for and how to use them.
- Python in TouchDesigner, general info, timing Extensions
- What are they, how they work, and when to use them
- Callbacks: What are they, how they work, and when to use them
- Live coding examples and best practices
That's the presentations, now for the artists…
Wieland Hilker
After many years of working as a freelance developer and consultant for interactive and immersive experiences, Wieland Hilker Co-Founded the PlusPlusOne GmbH with his partner Thomas Ehrecke. The PlusPlusOne GmbH is the culmination of years of experience for classical AV-Tech in the event-industry and bespoke solutions for action points, activations and other interactive installations.
Links:
Ivan DelSol
Ivan has been working with Derivative for about 10 years, mainly in the domain of Python and Python-heavy developer tools within the software, including TDAbleton, the Component Editor, and the TDI Library. He came from a Python and game development background, and started using TouchDesigner soon after Python was integrated as its main scripting language. In his artist life, he uses TouchDesigner for theater shows, installation art pieces, and audio-visual music generated from old Star Trek episodes.
Noah Norman
Noah Norman is an artist, technical director, and Chief of Hard Work Party. He's spent the last 15 years building installations, experiences, and digital objects with complex inner lives. Since 2023, through his startup Third Wave, he's been building next-generation immersive arcade games.
Links:
